


Man of Aesthetics

by GuileandGall



Series: Broken Old Hunter & Little Duck [1]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda, mass - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, EOS - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Smut, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 00:59:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Andromeda was supposed to be a new start. A new galaxy. A new home. A chance to begin anew. But that dream faded fast. It wasn't until the arrival of an ark in the Andromeda galaxy that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel seemed to come into view for hopeful colonists and struggling exiles alike. For the unexpected Pathfinder following up on a taunting radio call led to something neither she nor the seasoned kett hunter she stumbled across could deny.





	Man of Aesthetics

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Written for the MEBB 2017. Sincerest thanks to my MEBB beta reader, Bugsie C. Your suggestions and comments really helped make this piece far stronger. I also want to thank Saskia and Suzy from the Mass Effect Facebook Group who offered some further suggestions and encouragement on this piece. I appreciate your time and effort in helping me bring this piece to fruition.

**Artist Note:**[ScientistSalarian](https://scientistsalarian.tumblr.com/) [<https://scientistsalarian.tumblr.com/>] wrote a beautiful song for this piece _[Broken Old Hunter& Little Duck](https://soundcloud.com/little-laura-3/mebb/s-Lka2e). _ [Full Link: <https://soundcloud.com/little-laura-3/mebb/s-Lka2e>] It’s utterly amazing. I’ve been listening to it regularly since she sent me the link. It’s truly incredible. From the lyrics to the music, [ScientistSalarian](https://scientistsalarian.tumblr.com/) managed to really capture this piece in a way I couldn’t really anticipate.

****

**Man of Aesthetics**

**-1-**

Screaming wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in the streets and corridors of Kadara Port. But the scream which broke through the somber haze of sleep came from just beyond his door. His eyes swept the darkness of his room through the sight of a pistol. Another scream broke through the silence, this time accompanied by distinctive low-pitched grumpiness. Bain Massani groaned as he sat up, one hand on his side to relieve some of the pain in his ribs. He laid the weapon on the bedside table and tapped the lamp on, squinting with the bright assault of the sudden flood of light upon his senses. The muffled yells reminded him that it was that time again.

“No, you can’t do this,” a feminine voice exclaimed.

“We sure can.” The voice in reply was gruff, irritated.

There wasn’t a schedule to Outcast’s racket anymore. They just seemed to pick doors at random. Whether that was Sloane Kelly’s doing, or it trickled down from elsewhere, Bain couldn’t be sure, but it was quickly becoming too much.

 _This building used to be full_ , he thought. Now it was down to about half the occupancy it used to have. Of course, there were no shortage of people coming and going. Some managed to scavenge credits enough to pay up for a month, then they’d be gone again.

Something banged against the corridor wall; if he had to guess, he’d say it was probably someone’s forehead. Everyone in the port knew how the Outcasts worked—they’d rough people up even if they paid them off without any lip.

“You know the drill. Everyone pays the protection fees,” barked another Outcast.

Bain’s mind’s eye didn’t even strain itself in order to picture the Outcasts scuffing up the couple next door—a salarian and an asari, who both worked the docks.

Then the asari’s mate added, “We just paid last week. Ask Karis.”

Another slam, this time followed by a cry. Bain’s jaw flexed as he rubbed his hand over his bald head. He knew the salarian was right, the whole corridor had paid in full not even six days earlier. With the irritated groan of an exhausted man, who’d just barely gotten to sleep and desperately wanted to return to that state, he grabbed something from the drawer and limped across the room. Scarred knuckles jabbed at the controls.

When the door slid open, one of the Outcasts turned his weapon on the human. The slight pressure from his thumb fanned out the three chits he’d dug out of the drawer next to his bed; the kind he kept for occasions just like this one. The glare Bain cast at the thickly muscled young man delivered the message clearly—mine, theirs, and something for yourself.

“Think you fellas could do this a little more quietly?” The man lowered his weapon and reached for the credit chits. Bain pulled them away just a hair. “Seriously. Find some other building to shake down.”

“You got it, man,” he said, with a reassuring tone. When Massani relinquished the credits, the burly man whistled. “Let’s go, Outcasts.”

The salarian stumbled behind them a few steps and glanced toward Bain, who closed the door before any semblance of thanks reached the salarian’s lips. He didn’t pay Kelly’s goons off for appreciation; he just wanted to get some shut eye. Bain laid back down, the ache in his ribs dull and constant. It throbbed, but only enough to keep him from drifting back to sleep. Well, if he were honest with himself, and he usually wasn’t, more than the pain kept him from dozing.

The uprising remained fresh in the minds of everyone who had been on the _Nexus_ when all hell broke loose. The leadership, or rather those who had assumed control in the absence of the actual leaders, had scattered these people to the winds of this galaxy, abandoning them to whatever fate they could carve out of the hellscape that turned out to be the Heleus Cluster.

After failed attempts to settle on multiple planets, the Nexus exiles had sought refuge at this formerly angaran port only to find it crawling with kett. The desperate mix of humans, turians, asari, salarians, and even some angara battled the kett tooth and nail for Kadara, and now the exiles were exiling one another from this pit—tossing people to the pirates and criminals in the Badlands when they couldn’t pay the ever-growing protection fees in the port. It was insane, unconscionable, and not what Bain had bled for when he helped take this damned planet from those bone-faced bastards.

Sure, Bain Massani had done some questionable things in his life, been paid for far less scrupulous things than laying claim to a spaceport on an outlying planet, but he could honestly say he’d never shaken down and thrown away people that had already been abandoned by those who claimed to be their own.

A lot of people had joined the Andromeda Initiative for the chance at a new life far from the Milky Way, for thousands of reasons, each as unique as the one hundred thousand individuals who set out on the journey—at least if you believed the brochures and speeches. None of them signed on to wake up after six hundred years trapped in a coffin, sucking down smoke. They wanted a chance to live, not to die slowly of starvation and dehydration. The exiles left the Nexus for a chance. But now the people that led them away, including Sloane Kelly and her troops, were throwing them away and pushing them into a whole new unknown and all for fucking credits that meant nothing in the long run.

The whole cluster was going to hell—Kadara, Elaaden, the Nexus, all of it.

He tucked his hand under his head and stared at the muted patterns of neon light dancing across the ceiling. The last few months on Kadara left a bad taste in Bain’s mouth, more so than even the aftertaste of the sulfurous water. Something had to change. This wasn’t what he signed up for, wasn’t why he came to Andromeda.

 

**-2-**

Bain Massani didn’t fit in with the mix on Kadara. Tall and lean, everything about him discouraged people from interfering with him. Whether that reaction could be attributed to the shaved head, ruddy skin, and piercing green eyes or more to the reputation he’d earned since coming to the Heleus Cluster, Reyes Vidal could not be certain. It was likely a mix of both; though few people knew the man’s Milky Way history, he doubted that contributed much. Like most who joined the Initiative, Bain left his past in the past. Even so, Massani still had the walk of a man not to be trifled with, and most people gave him a wide berth; nothing about him conformed to a person’s first expectation and he was just as likely to shoot a person as buy them a drink.

“Where are you going?” Reyes asked. He leaned against a corner, completely hidden from the neon of the port and the bright lights of docks.

“You know, if you keep lurking in shadows you’re going to give people even better reasons to keep calling you a shady bastard,” Bain replied, without altering his stride.

It caused the smuggler to jog to catch up to his old friend. “Are you seriously going to make me ask twice?”

“What’s it matter?”

Reyes just followed and waited. Like most people, Vidal knew that if he let the silence linger long enough one of them would be forced to fill it. Thankfully, Massani reached that point before he did.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Bain finally said. The man had leaned toward him, his voice deep and low, almost as if sharing a secret that shouldn’t get out. The hint of gravel in his tone grated along Reyes’ spine in a memorable way.

“It’s not that bad,” he countered with stark lightness.

The mercenary stopped and stared into Reyes’ hazel eyes; his face mere inches away. “These people got kicked off the Nexus for not wanting to die.” His hand shot out toward the looming structure in the center of the port. “And now Sloane is feeding them to the wolves and abandoning them in the Badlands for not being able to keep up with her sliding scale fees.”

Reyes’ brows furrowed, taking a very conscious breath. Bain always had been a very passionate man, when the mood struck him. “So. That doesn’t mean you have to leave.”

“Why stay?” Distance opened up between them and Bain hefted the bag on his shoulder a bit higher. The fire in his vibrant green eyes dimmed, growing cold and more calculated. “Especially when I could be doing something useful.”

“Useful?” Reyes’ thick dark brows pulled further over his eyes. He knew that look, remembered that look. “What’re you planning?” Vidal asked, as his eyes searched the other man’s.

Massani’s shoulders dropped just a hair as if his body was physically settling into his decision. “I don’t know yet, but there’s a lot of kett out there,” he admitted.

“So, this is what? An elaborate suicide attempt?”

“Your faith in my abilities is touching, ‘Nub,” the former security expert noted with a cocky smile as he shortened Reyes’ old call sign into an almost grating nickname. Massani’s grin still managed to twist up Reyes’ guts.

“And your sheer stupidity is shocking, Bain.” He punched him in the shoulder. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Doubtful.”

Reyes’ hand moved to Bain’s shoulder and resignation entered his voice. “There’s no way to talk you out of this, is there?”

Muted shades of neon gleamed off his smooth scalp as he shook his head. “Nope. But it’s for the best. Trust me.”

“All right, fine.” He squeezed his friend’s shoulder and tried to make light of it all. “But if you find anything interesting—”

“I’ll bring it to the man with all the connections.” Bain grasped Reyes’ elbow for a moment as the two stared at one another.

“Good,” Reyes said. The smuggler didn’t give a damn about the possibility of equipment or stock. It was Bain he cared about. The two had known each other for years before the Initiative happened, before the Nexus, or Kadara Port. They’d been friends—more than that at some points—but friends still, and Reyes didn’t have enough of those in Andromeda to relish the idea of any of them throwing themselves at the kett for what he could only see as no good reason.

With all that time under their belts, Reyes Vidal knew one thing for certain: he couldn’t change Bain’s mind. The only person that could manage that was Massani himself. So, as his friend had come to settle into his plan, so Reyes would have to find a way to deal with what he could only see as an especially shitty way to die.

The pair of them walked toward Massani’s shuttle, one of those confiscated when they left the _Nexus_. Once they reached it, Reyes couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Keep in touch.”

Bain offered the smuggler his hand, which the other man clasped tightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll stop in and see you from time to time.”

“As long as you’re buying.” Reyes pulled his friend into a hug. Though he tried to keep his tone carefree, worry coiled through his muscles, adding to the tension he already felt.

Bain embraced him tightly, lingering a moment in Reyes’ arms. “Guess that’s one thing that will never change,” he chuckled as they separated. With a few keystrokes on his omni-tool, the door of the shuttle opened.

“Watch out for the Scourge,” Reyes added with a quick nod. His jaw tightened, back teeth grinding against one another.

“I might not have spent as much time in the cockpit as you, but I can hold my own.”

The smuggler shook his head at the man’s cocksure tone. It only served to increase his concern about what seemed a reckless choice. “You keep telling yourself that, cabrón.”

The deep rumble of his friend’s laughter did little to lighten Reyes’ mood. As the door closed, the smuggler moved back to the safety of the dock, but he didn’t leave. He paced as he waited for the shuttle take flight. Once it was airborne, he stood stock still watching it as it disappeared into the orange-blue pre-dawn sky. Once out of sight, he turned with his brow pulled low over his eyes and stared back at the prominent building at the center of the port.

A low growl hung in the back of his throat. Yet another person Reyes cared about was gone—all because of Sloane Kelly and her thugs. He’d seen corruption in many forms, but under her thumb Kadara became increasingly more difficult to survive as each day passed. And to be fair, the planet was already trying to kill them. Sulfurous water, the heat, and the constant stench—it sucked people dry. He’d seen and heard of more than a few exiles who just walked out into the Badlands and never returned. They’d fought the _Nexus_ for a chance, only to end up in this situation and have that same will to survive sucked out of them.

 _It wasn_ _’t fair._

If anyone knew life wasn’t fair, it was Reyes Vidal. Hell, he carved out a living on exactly that belief. But this was so much farther beyond the utopian dreams the Initiative sold them all. It wasn’t about fair anymore. It wasn’t even about equality or what was right. It was about a chance to survive.

“Something has to change,” he hissed into the faint malodorous breeze blowing from the neon drenched facade of the building that housed Kelly’s Outcast headquarters. He looked over his shoulder again at the spot where he’d seen Massani’s shuttle disappeared. There had to be some way to set this all right.

 

**-3-**

It wasn’t the first time Maritza Ryder looked at her father with awe. The all too sudden quiet called her attention away from him as light streamed through the clouds onto the platform. The storm seemed to have calmed.

“I’ll be damned. It’s working,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. Alec strode toward her. “You did it.”

He patted her shoulder. “There’s hope, at least.” There was something in his voice that she’d heard before, but only a few times in her life. This wasn’t the consummate professional pushing her to achieve; this was just her dad.

“That’s all anyone back on the ark is looking for: hope it’ll work out.”

“Well, not if we stand around looking at sunsets. Let’s get back to the shuttle and—”

He must have heard it, too—a low rumble that seemed to bubble up from beneath them. They turned to find a cloud of opaque gas rushing at them. It lifted Maritza off her feet. She grunted as she collided with the control panel just outside the door. The wind was knocked from her lungs as she bounced once more. For the second time that day, she bounced tumbled through the air.  Her hands clamored for a hold, finally finding purchase at the lip of the platform. Willing herself to just hold on for another second, then another, she allowed herself to hope it would might end soon. Then she saw the crate.

It all felt like it happened in slow motion. The crate tumbled off the stack, bounced across the deck, then hit her square in the face. She couldn’t dodge it. She managed to gulp down a gulp a lungful of air as the world spun around her at a dizzying pace. Despite that, her eyes were glued to the crack in her faceplate. Again, the alarms on her suit screeched in her ears before she careened hard into the ground and skidded.

Finally, her body stopped. She lay on her back staring up at the clearing sky. Just at the edge of her vision ragged shards caught her attention. _Shit_ , she thought a second before she gasped. Instantly, her lungs and throat burned. She struggled to breathe, but each gasp failed to bring any relief. Panic set in quickly.

A light approached from a distance.

 _Dad_ , she tried to say, but nothing came out.

 _No_ , she argued, but only choking sounds came out. Not hearing her, he pulled her broken helmet off and replaced it with his. “Deep breaths,” he told her. Her father’s voice rang in her ears, cutting through the hysteria gripping her. “Just breathe.”

Those two words played through her head on repeat even as her mind flashed. Her father’s face became her mother’s. The mantra was joined by laughter—her own? Ramón’s? She couldn’t be sure in that instant. Then there was another face. It took her a moment to place it. Everything seemed to ache and her mind couldn’t settle in one place for any amount of time, until it all went quiet and dark.

It felt like a dream. _No, a nightmare_ , she thought as her eyes opened. Her eyes blinked in the dim light as she stared at the darkness above her. Her mind swirled like a whirlpool, making her dizzy, even as she lay on her back.

“Welcome back, Maritza.”

She’d recognize SAM’s voice anywhere, that strange mix of almost human and electronic modulation. She blinked a few more times, trying to get the room to stop spinning and come into focus. Ryder couldn’t remember ever having felt worse in her entire life, even that Spring Break that she and Ramón spent in Cancun with their friends. Her whole body seemed to pulse and her head felt like every thought had to fire through molasses to try and coalesce. Even her own breathing sounded far off and muddled, but somehow SAM’s voice was crystal clear through all the haze.

“What happened?” she croaked. Her throat felt burned, like when you swallowed coffee that was too hot. She tried clearing her throat as she curled her body forward in an effort to sit up. Every bone and muscle in her body seemed to scream in pain. Her head intensified every sensation, pounding like a bass drum at the change of position

“You were clinically dead for twenty-two seconds.”

Her brain somehow skipped right past that piece of information to the next question that sprang immediately to mind. “Then how did I make it out?”

SAM didn’t answer before Liam groaned. It was his movement that caught her eye, then her full attention. He just blinked at her. “Hey. You’re still with us.” Sleep clung to his voice as he hopped to his feet and tapped his omni-tool. “Guys, get to SAM Node. Ryder’s awake.” He took another step toward Maritza. “Who were you talking to?”

“SAM.”

“I didn’t hear him.”

Maritza didn’t have the energy to try and explain, nor did she get the chance. Cora and Doctor T’Perro rushed through the door and down the platform toward her. Clearly, Liam hadn’t been the only one waiting for her to come to. Lexi immediately set to checking Maritza’s status, but in following the doctor’s fingertips for the second time that day she caught sight of her father’s helmet on the floor near a console. Discarded like something no longer needed.

Flashes flooded through her head, which seared with each remembered moment. She leaned forward pressing the heel of her hand to her temple as she winced. A low grunt hung in her throat; Maritza was far too stubborn to let it become the scream it wanted to be. Like a seasoned personnel officer, Cora broke the news Ryder already knew—her father was dead. He’d died to save her, rather than saving himself; rather than putting the needs of the Initiative, of the crew of the Hyperion, of his squad first, he chose his daughter.

The information just swirled around in her head, mixing with other questions she didn’t know the answers to, questions she’d buried before her mother even died. She didn’t want to face it, didn’t even know where to start trying to think though that piece of information.

“What are we doing in SAM Node?” Ryder asked. Finally, finding a topic she felt like she could handle. Her voice came out flat as she stared at her hands. Her mother always said she had her father’s hands, and now more than anything she just wanted to feel his in her grip again. She clasped them tightly together, every muscle in her arms tightening up to and through her shoulders as she finally looked up at the faces around her as she waited on an answer.

It had seemed an easy question at first, then the doctor went on a tangent about some change in Maritza’s connection to SAM. Even her innocent question managed to get incredibly complicated far too quickly.

“Your father authorized the transfer of Pathfinder authority to you,” the AI announced.

“What?” she snapped. Her head whipped around to stare at the glimmering ball of blue and white light in the center of the room. Knowing she couldn’t read it’s “face,” she turned back to the others with a deep furrow in her brow. She tried to think it through, but she couldn’t really get her mind to engage in the normal fashion. Things seemed to be moving far faster than she could flow—it felt like everyone in the room were all sprinting for the finish line, but she was still crawling around the first bend in the track.

Maritza could feel the confused frown on her face. She was far too aware of her disconnection from the topic and the moment. It almost felt as if she were floating outside of herself watching all of this happen. But the news seemed to put her into autopilot, questions rising from some prepared well deep beneath her skin. “Shouldn’t that be Cora?”

“In theory,” Cora began with a sigh that sounded tired, but looked exasperated. “In reality, however, you’re the new pathfinder, Maritza.”

“You can’t be serious.” Ryder slumped forward, shoulders folding in on herself as the weight of it landed, none too squarely, onto her shoulders. It was as if a bubble had been burst in her chest and she just deflated inward.

“What’s the matter?” Liam said, giving her a serious look and the start of a boyish grin. Plus, he sounded way too chipper. “I think you’re up for it.”

That did not help. She exhaled through her nose and looked up at him with a disbelieving shake of her head. “You saw my dad in action. It takes years to become a pathfinder.”

Kosta was steadfast, she had to give him that. “You’ll learn as you go,” he suggested with a shrug. “Besides, you won’t be doing this alone.”

“Cora?” she asked.

“It’s what he wanted. I won’t stand in the way, but being pathfinder is a serious job. You sure you’re up for this?”

“Your dad obviously had faith in you. I say run with it,” Liam interjected.

Maritza dropped her face into her hands. _How could her father do this to her? How could he do this to Cora?_ She’d trained as his second, but he just passed her over. Then it struck her, like a truck, and she gasped for breath. He traded her life for his, placed her squarely in his shoes and left her there alone to figure it all out, as Liam had suggested.

No training. No preparation. No warning. Just like that time in the woods when she and Ramón were kids. _This is all just another goddamn exercise_. Except this time around it wasn’t just the lives of she and her brother on the line. _Even dead, you_ _’re still an asshole_ , Maritza thought.

Maritza felt abandoned, completely and utterly alone, even surrounded by the three of them in SAM Node. She’d lost her mother before they left the Milky Way, watched her father sacrifice himself for her, and Ramón was still unconscious and injured, if she was lucky. The last time she’d seen him, or more aptly seen his stasis pod, Doctor T’Perro had ordered he be left inside so that he could wake up the old-fashioned way. Her shoulders shook with a voiceless laugh that almost turned into a sob.

If this went anything like Saturday mornings when they were kids, he’d be sleeping it off for quite a while. _Not a comforting thought._

Ryder watched the asari, it was like she was pacing, looking for something to busy herself with so as not to be on the spot. Then she glanced away too, as if that would somehow shield her from the reality of it all. Maritza gave her head a tiny shake as she dug for an answer and found one she could almost hear her father saying as it came out of her mouth. “A lot of people here are counting on me. I’ll get it done.”

“It’s all academic anyway,” Lexi added, ending the discussion on the matter. Her long fingers danced over the panel’s interface. “SAM’s linked to your mind on a deeper level now. Trying to untangle it could kill you.” The doctor turned and locked eyes with Maritza. Her gaze was stern

 _Read that five-by-five,_ Maritza thought. Cora just stood there, face unreadable. Liam looked affected; his hand rested on Harper’s shoulder as he stole glances at Ryder out of the corner of his eye.

“I know this is tough, but we need to start thinking about the next step. There are a lot of people counting on us,” Harper said.

 _Mierda, she_ _’s right._ Ryder didn’t waste time lecturing herself for not coming up with that first. She tried to make up some ground, earn a little confidence. “Is the ark still drifting?”

“That’s the thing.” Liam took a baby step forward. “Whatever your dad did with that tower, it saved the day. Some sort of atmosphere scrubber.”

“The energy cloud thinned out. We’re on our way to the rally point now. Should rendezvous with the Nexus soon,” Cora said. Maritza nodded.

“She needs to rest first,” Doctor T’Perro injected. All their faces turned toward the doctor.

“She has two hours,” Cora stated, then turned her stony gaze back to Maritza. “We’ll need our pathfinder for this.”

Again, she felt a sting in her gut as she was reminded how underprepared and uninformed she felt, comparatively. Her father had years of experience and preparation. So, did Cora. Maritza was just a recon specialist with a few years playing security for bookworms. Ryder ran her hand through her short, black hair.

“Oh,” Liam started, turning back to her as the others left. “I checked on your brother. Still no change.” He actually sounded sorry to deliver the news. Almost as disappointed as she was to hear it. “But if you can pull through, so can he. A bit of your dad in both of you.”

Maritza forced a shade of a smile. She knew he was right. Their mother had mentioned that exact similarity more times than she could have ever counted. They were, the three of them, stubborn, headstrong, tenacious; of course, usually Mom just resorted to calling them all pigheaded. Most of the time, that particular word felt most accurate, especially after her father decided to break protocol. _No shock there really_ , she thought with a derisive, quiet laugh, but making her the pathfinder seemed to even surpass his standard-issue impertinence.

 _Deeper connection_ , she thought. _What the hell did that even mean?_

“Your father will be missed,” SAM said once the room emptied.

“What’s going on, SAM?” she finally asked, turning on the gurney and glancing at the glowing physical representation of the artificial intelligence.

“This is our private channel. I shared it with him.”

“A private channel? He never mentioned anything about that?”

“It allowed me to know him better.”

“Huh.” Maritza considered it a moment. _If SAM knew Dad well, then he_ _’d have to know_. “Why’d he do it, SAM? Why me?” The question bored into her marrow and seared itself on the inside of her bones; she needed to know. Another of those traits her ever-curious mother blamed on her father.

“Unknown. But he never acted without reason. Alec wouldn’t want us to lose sight of the goal. He said pain emboldens our resolve. He’d insist we grow stronger from his passing.”

 _Christ, even the AI_ _’s got a better hold on the handle on things than you. Get it together, Mari._

She pushed herself to her feet.

“Where are you going, Ryder?” SAM asked.

“Don’t call me that,” she said in a quiet tone before answering his question. “Cora said I have two hours before we meet up with the Nexus. I need to see Ramón. And I should probably run through a shower. I kind of smell like death,” she said with a morbid chuckle.

“I’ll keep you updated on our progress.”

“Thanks, SAM.”

“You’re welcome, Maritza.”

She hobbled out of SAM Node. After a rather painful shower, she managed to find her way back to the cryo bay, doing her best to avoid the sidelong glances and mournful looks. Her jaw tightened with every doe-eyed nod she received. But thankfully, the cryo bay was mostly empty when she arrived, though she did catch the brow-furrowing frown Doctor Harry Carlyle sent her direction. He probably knew about Lexi’s orders for her to rest and damned well knew as well as Ryder did that this was not what the asari had in mind. Of course, he also didn’t interfere with her either.

She’d known Harry most of her life. He’d worked with her dad, longer than she could remember. And if anyone on the _Hyperion_ knew how determined Maritza could be, it was him. She dragged a chair over beside her brother’s bed and sat down.

For a long time, she just stared at his face, at the scratches and contusions. Neither of them were in great shape it seemed. Then she slipped her hand into his. It felt familiar, but at the same time it was strange not to have him either holding on or trying to push her away. So, since he couldn’t, she laced their fingers and clasped his hands between hers as she leaned in close to him.

“I fucked up, little brother,” she whispered. Only he would hear it, if he even could. “We all did. We just got here and everything’s already gone to hell in a handcart. Dad’s dead. Because of me. And somehow, he thought it was a good idea to make _me_ the pathfinder. Can you believe that shit?” A hint of a laugh caught in her throat.

“It’s bloody well ridiculous. I don’t know what he was thinking. But everyone’s just going along with it, like it’s some great plan. Even Cora, or so it seems, though truth be told she has got to be totally pissed. I mean, I would be in her shoes.”

She took a long slow breath and rested her forehead against his fingers. “Habitat Seven was a bust. On the bright side, I managed to survive falling out of a shuttle. Just one more point for me,” she said, trying to smile, but it was harder than she remembered. “Managed to save two guys, but we still lost the third. These aliens just … shot him in cold blood.”

Quiet bloomed. Only low whispers of muffled, far-off conversations ebbed and flowed through the space meant to be calming to wake up in. “You would have loved it down there. Though your brain might have exploded from trying to mathematically justify the floating mountains,” she chuckled, setting her chin on their laced fingers. “And there were these huge flying creatures—not quite dragons, but close enough.”

Her violet-gray eyes stared at his sleeping face, slack and sallow. “I need you to wake up,” she ordered, trying not to let the tears welling in her eyes fall. “I mean, if I can come back from the dead, you ought to at least be able to thaw out properly.”

“Ryder.” Cora’s voice rang clear over the low din of activity in the cryo bay.

Maritza straightened with a quiet sniffle. Her thumbs hooked in her blouse and she rubbed the fabric under her right eye then her left. “Sleep tight, baby brother.” She bent over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “But wake up soon. I miss you, Ramón,” she told him as she laid his hand back on his chest and gave it a gentle squeeze. What she wouldn’t give to feel him squeeze it in return, to see him wrinkle his nose and grimace at her reminding him that she had a whole minute on him in age.

 _Please, wake up_ , she prayed quietly and stared down at the face she knew better than her own. _I can_ _’t lose you, too._

**-4-**

The rumors found Bain’s ear first in the dank stench of Kadara. Sulfurous air and poisonous water that burst into flames truly were among the least deadly aspects of this planet. The angaran port had been overrun by the brutal kett invaders, who were, in turn, ousted by a desperate mix of Milky Way denizens—equally alien and undeniably determined. Kadara had been their last chance in the Heleus Cluster, his last chance.

Bain Massani strode down the stairs leading to the bazaar with cautious purpose. His eyes flitted from face to face, to shadows and corners, looking for the tiniest sign of anything untoward—a habit of the life he left behind when he joined the Andromeda Initiative.

On Kadara, identifying threats proved a busy task, leading to a long list. In the port, at least, there was a modicum of safety. Well, more like the illusion of it, at least if you were among those who could pay the protection fees imposed by Sloane Kelly and her Outcasts. Thankfully, he numbered among that select group.

As was his tendency, but by no means a habit, he stopped by Kralla’s Song for a drink—anything not bottled on Kadara preferably. The foulness of the water tainted everything, no matter how crafty Umi Henon proved to be behind the bar. He took his seat at the end of the bar, in the shadows, and sipped his drink while listening intently to the conversations buzzing around him.

“The Collective are just a bunch of posers. The Outcasts will retire them soon enough,” one turian assured his salarian drinking partner.

The newest threat to Kelly’s rule seemed a popular topic in the bar, so Bain took his drink and stood near the windows, which overlooked the Badlands. The planet harbored a rugged beauty among its high, beige peaks and secluded mountain valleys. There were moments when he missed the view, though breathing the noxious air here could erase any fondness for the picturesque nature of the place.

Kadara also boasted a dizzying network of caves, which made it an attractive haven for smugglers, rylkor, mercenaries, eiroch, and thieves alike. Even the pools of acidic water, bordered by patchy plants with long, red, finger-like tendrils reaching up into the stinking air, held their own ravenous allure. Aside from the chance to view the blue-white fires dancing upon the glassy surface, the deep aqua pools held another dark purpose for the exiles who called this rock home—the sulfuric acid in the water was perfect for removing certain … problems, permanently and completely.

“I’m serious,” one human whispered to another in a nearby corner.

It wasn’t the words so much as the secrecy that drew Bain’s attention, though he didn’t move. His eyes skimmed the dips and rises of the nearby mountain range as his attention focused on the potentially intriguing conversation.

“It’s bullshit. Marx’s got to be yanking your chain.”

“I’m telling you he’s not. You should have heard him. He actually sounded … I don’t know. In awe.”

Bain lifted his half-empty glass to his lips and tried to shift enough to catch the speakers’ reflections in the window pane, but to no avail.

“It can’t be,” the second man breathed. “It’s been more than a year.”

“I’m telling you. He was dead serious.”

“Yeah, well.” This man was clearly losing his battle to remain objective. “Then what took them so long?”

The silence hung long enough for him to want to turn around and make sure they were still there, then the first man spoke again, his voice low and quiet. “I don’t know, but it’s not just the pathfinder—” Bain’s muscles tensed up in an effort to keep himself still against his near overwhelming desire to enter this conversation and pepper the man with a dozen disbelieving questions of his own. “It’s the _Hyperion_.”

“You’re so full of it,” the other man replied in a derisive tone. “It can’t be. They’re all lost.” A chair skidded on the deck as the man stood, or so Bain concluded from the sound.

“They’re not! I swear, Michael.”

“Give it up, Homer. It’s a pipe dream.”

The heavy footsteps faded and Bain turned slowly, leaning against the window and glancing around the room. Keeping Homer in his peripheral vision so as not to unnerve the young man, if he was old enough to be called that. He didn’t even look old enough to have finished high school, but there he was on Kadara sporting Outcast colors and looking harried. He didn’t give the impression that he was the most accurate source of information on such matters, but then Bain never believed a rumor the first time he heard it.

Lifting his glass, he drained it and left. He knew who to ask. Not ten minutes later, he was making his way toward the back room of the only other dive in Kadara—Tartarus.

This place had a whole other feel. Like the underside of the port itself, the bar felt sleazier, but better than that, it could be a haven from Sloane Kelly and her goons. Unless they were on assignment in the underworld, you rarely saw Outcasts roaming. That made things nicer for some and more hellish for others. The music blared and behind bars dancers of various races and genders writhed to the rhythms for the customers sipping away their cares.

Massani passed up the main bar and took the stairs two at a time. He stared at the door and took a deep breath before moving toward the private room. When the door closed behind him the dark-haired man glared at him, then a grin crossed his lips, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Got something I thought might interest you. Healthy stock of Kett munitions.”

“Been busy then, I take it.”

Massani gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Wish I could help, but I’ve got too much stock right now. Can’t take any more guns.”

“Not talking guns, Reyes. Explosives, incendiaries, some new portable electrical cages they’ve been using for … game,” he said, aiming for delicacy on that particular subject. He was sure his old friend didn’t want to know that the kett were using those cages for angara and other species. If he were honest with himself, Bain didn’t want to know that either.

“Fine. But you could have just sent me a list. What really brought you down here?”

Bain tapped at his omni-tool and transferred the prepared cargo list to Reyes Vidal, who was reputedly the most successful smuggler in Kadara Port. They’d worked together several times since Bain left, but ever since that day he had felt this strange gulf develop between the two of them.

“What makes you think I didn’t just stop by to catch up?”

“Because I know you.” Both men chuckled. “Sit down. Want a drink?”

“Nah. I’m good. But you’re right.”

“Of course, I am.”

His smile widened as he watched Reyes lean back against the sofa wearing a triumphant grin. “I heard something interesting in Kralla’s Song,” Bain revealed.

“That place is full of piss poor gossips.”

“And here I thought you’d like to hear that a pathfinder finally showed up. Probably means the _Nexus_ is going to start their expansion plans again. Wonder what that means for this little setup you got going?”

Reyes’ smile faded and he leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we? Don’t figure they’ll look too kindly on soldiers of fortune either.”

Bain held up his hands. “Hey now, Anubis. I only steal from the Kett. So, they won’t have any bones to pick with me.”

“Wishful thinking, I’d say.”

“Maybe. But I bet that pathfinder’s going to love this set up. Might even cut into that supply route of yours.”

“What did you hear, Massani?” Vidal challenged, shooting to his feet.

“Oh, not much. Believe me, old friend. But I did hear it was the human ark. Alec Ryder and Nozomi Dunn. Formidable pair, if I recall correctly.”

“True enough, but at least Alec’s not the by the book type.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

Reyes shrugged one shoulder as he sipped at his whiskey. Bain wondered if it was from the Milky Way or something someone tried to distill here. The idea of Kadaran whiskey made his nose wrinkle. “Sloane was by the book.”

“Until she threw it at Tann,” Bain quipped.

“Touché.”

Massani studied the smuggler he’d known since before the Initiative. “So, you’re not worried about this?”

“Why would I? Like a cat, I always land on my feet. Which is more than I can say for you, old friend.”

He laughed. “Don’t you lose any of your beauty sleep worrying about me. Even if I land on my ass, you know me. I come out swinging.”

“I remember.”

Bain gave him a quick wink and stood up slowly.

“You sure you don’t want to stay for a drink?” Vidal offered.

It made Massani wonder if Reyes missed him. Or maybe he was just lonely. Better than most, he knew that Reyes preferred to have people around him, though Bain preferred to go solo professionally. It was an interesting dichotomy and one of the reasons they never really clicked, at least on the long term. While they’d always managed to maintain a friendship, Massani’s sharp edges never really fit the roundedness of Vidal’s life and preferences; though in the short-term they’d always fit well enough to fill a void, Bain’s incongruity, his inability to stop for too long eventually unsettled things between Reyes and him.

“I’ll pass. Going to grab some rack time, in an actual bed. Then get back to it.”

“Just leave everything on the list at the docks. I’ll pick it up and wire you the funds in the morning, before you leave.”

“Thanks,” Bain called over his shoulder as he strolled toward the door.

 _You could have stayed for a drink_ , a quiet voice in the back of his head told him in a lecturing tone as he trotted down the stairs. While that was certainly true, it was also possible that it might have become more than a drink. Bain didn’t want to fall into that again; or more accurately, didn’t want to pull Reyes into it when they both knew Massani would still leave in the morning without a look back. He’d hurt his friend when he left Kadara months earlier, and knew if he left himself fall into that comfortable moment, he’d just hurt Reyes all over again. It was his nature

Massani never had been comfortable with stillness, with staying in one place or in one position too long. Maybe that’s more the reason he left the Milky Way than the looming chance at a new existence or a new life. Even in Andromeda, he’d fallen back into old, familiar patterns. Finding work where there really wasn’t any to be had and cutting his own path through the Heleus Cluster.

Passing the dancers’ cages again as he exited, Bain recalled that those bars weren’t just there for the protection of the dancers. They kept the patrons safe, too. _You can_ _’t take a moment to relax on this planet without having to worry for your life._ The cages made the whole club, not just the entertainer’s confines, feel claustrophobic.

The ambiance in Tartarus, in the underworld altogether, grated him the wrong way and he usually avoided the spot unless absolutely necessary. But seeing Reyes from time to time was a necessity, even if just a selfish and guilty one. Bain didn’t run into many people willing to stop and chat in his chosen trade, if he could call hunting kett a trade.

As he headed for the lift, his mind churned. He wasn’t sure how to read his friend’s response to the rumors that an ark had finally arrived— _late as hell, but it_ _’s here_. Though Reyes’ reaction moved the information from the category of gossip to news. Clearly, the whispers bore some truth. Reyes was far too nonchalant about learning that 20,000 humans and a pathfinder had arrived and were now kicking over rocks in the Andromeda galaxy for it not to have some truth to it.

 _What had taken so long? Why were they late? And was the pathfinder out there looking for a home? A real one?_ When the lift that carried him back to the docks lurched to a halt, he shook his head clear.

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered to himself as he straightened again and waited for the door to open. “The Golden Worlds were just a sales pitch.” _The Andromeda Initiative turned out just to be an expensive, time-delayed mass suicide_ , he thought as he watched the people trudging through their lives on Kadara—not enough sleep, barely enough to eat or drink, and having to slave away to keep Sloane Kelly from exponentially speeding up the drop of the axes looming over their heads _._

The hollow echo of his boots on the grating rang in his ears, echoed in his head. In the end, for Massani at least, it didn’t matter. This life or the one he left, they were both going to end the same way. It was inevitable. No matter what you did death always came, sooner for some and later for others.

“Headed back out?” the dock master asked as the tall, lean mercenary strolled toward his shuttle.

“Before dawn. Got a package for Reyes.”

“Oh, nice.” The man fell into step beside Massani. “You going after more kett?”

“Might as well.” The non-committal answer proved the best in this circumstance. Only a few people knew what it was Massani did in Andromeda, though most made assumptions based on the sheer volume of alien hardware he moved in places like Kadara. And the people that discovered the whole truth of it thought he was out of his mind.

Once the crates were offloaded, he made his way to the tiny room that used to be his home here. He managed to steal several uninterrupted hours of sleep, guaranteeing that his shuttle would certainly have been refueled. He’d come to tolerate the angaran nutrient paste well enough, though he did have to make sure to bring some human rations along with him. After a quick stop in the market, he was back on the docks.

Kett’s Bane left Kadara before dawn again. He’d triangulated the coordinates of a signal he believed belonged to a kett transport. If he was lucky, he’d be able to scare up a fight on his terms.

 

**-5-**

When he stepped out of the shuttle, the scavenger shivered, but not because it was cold. On the contrary Eos’ desert-like climate was dry and hot, like the Mojave back on Earth. The silence on the planet’s surface was eerie, however. Viscerally so. Empty buildings and the faint creaking and scraping of metal only made the scene feel like something out of an old horror vid. Clancy Arquist hated coming to Eos, but the equipment the Initiative left behind held too much promise. Besides, he needed the credits.

Having been here before, he headed straight for the research center. Surely, if there was anything worth taking it would be there. Besides he’d already tried to open the crate with the vehicle. That was a no go, unfortunately. If he could get that thing out, he could live like a king anywhere he wanted. But it needed the kind of authorization neither he nor anyone else could hack.

Once he reached the research station, the hatch opened easily. It looked like an earthquake had hit. Desks were knocked over, consoles leaned against the bulkheads, and detritus was strewn across the floor.

“Crap,” he muttered over the howl of the wind through the open door. This didn’t appear at all promising.

He righted a console and tapped away at the keys. _Damn, wiped clean._ By the time he collected a pile of the few remaining objects with potential, the alarm he set on his omni-tool rang.

“Shit!” With a large sweeping motion of his arm, he scraped the items into his bag and headed for the door. He jumped past the steps and dashed toward the power relay station. “Shit, shit, shit.”

His eyes scanned the sky frantically. He should have paid more attention, he thought as he ran. Someone on the Nexus was going to notice he was gone for sure. Once he reached the station, he locked himself in and shut down the power to the abandoned settlement. Then Clancy curled up in the darkest corner of the room he could find to wait it out. His eyes locked on the massive window on the other side of the room, staring at the landscape visible through the hazy sky.

When the first kett ship came into sight, he held his breath. Staring at it, his lungs started to burn. His body forced him to gasp in a breath, just as the ship passed over head. The whine of the engines may have been muffled by the walls, but it sounded like they were just hovering there. Pulling the pistol from his belt, he held it in two shaky hands and tried to remember that prayer his grandmother always said with him when she put him to bed at night. The weapon shook violently despite the tight, reinforced grip he used.

 _I_ _’m just a scavenger_ , he thought, not daring to speak. _I won_ _’t stand a chance against those … things._

There was another sound, higher pitched than the kett scout ship’s low drone. It zipped past the building. Clancy’s attention went to the window and he noticed a shuttle flying low, skimming the mountains. The kett ship gave chase.

He leaned back against the wall, taking fast deep breaths as the pounding in his chest started to calm. Whoever that was might just have saved his ass. Of course, he still had to wait out the patrols. There was no way around that. If he tried to get off Eos’ surface with the kett on alert, he’d be a sitting duck. So, he hunkered down and waited. According to his source, they only did these planet-wide sweeps for about six hours every few days.

 

**-6-**

Her first impression of Eos from the air was awe. On the ground, that sensation turned hollow and cold despite the heat coming off the sand in waves. The dry wind whistled and metal creaked. There were other sounds—clanging caused by the whipping winds, the yawning of the huge water filtration device, and the smattering of dust against the walls of the abandoned buildings—but there were no signs of life. Site One was empty.

The settlement had been named Promise—that’s what it was supposed to be, but she couldn’t help thinking that it was just a broken one. The Andromeda Initiative for a lot of people was about a new life, a new start. And this place. It was death. Empty buildings, destroyed and abandoned tech. The winds were so bad they bent metal structures meant to endure the harshest climates.

Just like Habitat Seven, it looked bad. But it’s like her father said. They were marooned; the people on the ark and on the Nexus needed safe harbor. It was the pathfinder’s job to find it—her job. And if her first meeting with the Initiative brass showed her anything, it was that she had to get it right the first time out. The margin for error was slim to none. But luckily, she’d grown up with that kind of expectation and she was confident in her team. They’d handled Habitat Seven and survived. They could handle Eos.

“The door’s getting emergency power, but it’s code locked,” Ryder said once they reached the main control building.

“Site One issued individual security codes. Each outpost self-organizes and sets its own protocol,” SAM explained in far too much detail.

“Just say we can’t open it without codes,” she grumbled and trudged back down the stairs.

“We can’t open it without codes,” the AI parroted.

Ryder chuckled quietly with a shake of her head. Having SAM in her head was going to take a lot of getting used to.

With a search required, she called upon her recon specialization training and rounded the building. A lump lodged in her throat when she saw the body.

“Damnit,” she muttered. She brought her omni-tool up again and took a scan.

“Main building access code is acquired, Pathfinder,” SAM declared in that detached, mechanical way of his.

Maritza sighed and knelt next to the body. “That’s not the important part, SAM.”

“We knew some were lost,” Kallo interjected in a reserved tone that bordered on disbelief. “But we weren’t told they were _left_.”

“I wonder how many more are out there,” Lexi noted. Grieved curiosity mingled with her respectful tone. It was a thought that played through Maritza’s head as well. And if she had to guess she and the doctor just might be on the same page as the pathfinder with this discovery.

“Too many,” Ryder replied. _One was too many_. she thought. “Lexi, update Nexus records on one Harwell, Theo J. And get a recovery shuttle out here.”

“Good idea, Maritza. If he’s got family, they deserve closure.”

Maritza stood, eyes still locked on the body. “We’ll give them more than closure,” she said to herself. “We’ll finish what they started.” The promise was one she’d already made to her dad, and her brother. She felt the loss and despair of this place as heartily as those who’d been in Andromeda for the last fourteen months. But Maritza also knew that something had to change. After butting heads with the Nexus brass, she decided to put faith in her father’s choice. Maybe she could be the one to turn the Initiative’s luck around, her own luck.

“Damn right, Pathfinder,” Kosta agreed, placing his hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

“Let’s get back to it,” Maritza said. The tightness of her mouth and jaw gave her tone a stoicism reminiscent of her father. She shivered and shook her head. This wasn’t the time for thinking about that. She had a job to do here, she reminded herself. To do it, they needed to pinpoint the signal SAM picked up; so, she rounded the building and tried the code discovered on Harwell’s body.

The door opened easily, but it was to little avail. The power was cut off at the relay station. They jogged across the length of the settlement, toward the building SAM marked on her map. When she reached the door, it too was locked down, from the inside. She pounded on it with her fist. “Hello in there.”

“Huh. Guess that ship wasn’t kett, then,” a man’s voice replied over the comm. “They don’t knock.”

Ryder glanced at her crew. “There are people here? We thought everyone left was gone.”

“Of course, you did. Now, shove off. Find your own salvage. This spot’s taken.”

Her brow rose and her lips thinned as she cast a wary glance at Liam, who just stood there with his hands on his hips looking rather disappointed at the turn. “I’m not a salvager. I’m a pathfinder. We’ve come to fix all this.”

“Call me Clancy. Pathfinder, huh?” For a moment, he sounded hopeful, then his tone soured. “Like that changes much. The Nexus just can’t let Eos go, can it? However, much it fails down here”.

Maritza looked at Vetra. Her shoulder raised a hair with a shake of her head. Letting out a long breath, the pathfinder turned back toward the door with resignation in her tone and told him more than he needed to know. “I’m tracking a signal that will help Eos. I only need power for the antenna.”

“Look, I cut the power for a reason. The kett are patrolling today. You turn the power relay back on, they’ll know there’s a juicy target alive down here.”

 _Coward_ , she thought with a low growl. Her shoulders tightened. _What is he going to do just hide and hope they suddenly go away?_ From what she’d seen that wasn’t the kett’s style. She punched the door, hard. A sharp needle of pain shot through her knuckles and into her forearm, then she tried again to appeal to his better nature. “Is it smarter to hide and hope, or take a chance that might save this whole damn planet?

Clancy chuckled. _Motherfucker_ , she thought. Then he continued, “I remember when people used to talk like that.” She couldn’t read his tone, or the silence that followed. The intercom keyed again and she heard him sigh. “Okay. I’ll enable the generators out there. You want to poke the tiger, it’s on you.”

 _Yes!_ “I’m good with tigers,” she replied smartly. Her wide grin curled into a look that was equal parts menacing and determined. As she strutted away from the door, with a spring in her step that oozed cockiness.

He could lock himself away, while she and her team handled this. That was fine by her. She’d seen the kett on Habitat Seven, felt confident in her ability to take them on here too.

“SAM, tell me something. Our friend Clancy was he part of the outpost team here?” she asked as she all but skipped down the steps to the generator that sat just beyond. Her stride, long and focused, was matched by the inviolable set of her shoulders.

“No, Pathfinder. According to Nexus records, he’s stationed in the hangar bay.”

Vetra snorted in amusement, or appreciation, Ryder wasn’t sure which. “So, he used his clearance to sneak off the station. Make some credits on the side.”

“Ballsy.” Liam nodded in appreciation of the move. Ryder gave him a quick glare. “What? It is.”

“Don’t sound so impressed,” Ryder said. Though if she had to admit it, she might have been affected by the ingenuity, whilst disturbed that people were willing to risk their lives to loot the bones of a corpse.

She tried to push it out her mind as they dealt with the generators. The first malfunctioned, shocking her and giving her armor’s system a jolt as well. Luckily, it didn’t do more than take her shields down, which quickly recharged. Clearly, her track record with inanimate objects was only getting worse. The manual interface went more smoothly.

“Expect trouble when we start the generators,” she told her crew as the second one whirled to life.

“The power relay station is ready for activation, Pathfinder,” SAM said.

“Good to know. Let’s head back.” To be fair, she hadn’t expected the kett response to be quite so quick. They beat her back to the relay station. “Double time it, people.”

Her feet crunched and slid in the sandy earth, slowing her pace a bit. Her shoulder bounced off a crate as she tripped into cover amid heavy fire. Keying off the safety, she popped out of a burst of fire and lobbed a grenade into the enemies’ midst. It sent the kett scattering, which made them easier for her and her team to pick off one by one.

“Hell, yes,” Liam called as the last kett fell.

“Too soon,” Vetra grumbled as another kett ship moved directly toward them.

“Grab cover,” Ryder yelled, hopping over a crate to take her own advice.

They traded fire with the kett, but as soon as they got the squad whittled down, another shipload arrived. “Guess Clancy wasn’t kidding,” Ryder told herself as she hunkered behind a blast wall being peppered with rounds.

After clearing the remaining kett, the three of them stuck to their cover waiting anxiously for the sound of another kett vessel. But all they heard was the wind.

“Think that was the last of them,” Liam said, glancing over at her.

Fully expecting his statement to magically call down another jump ship, Ryder peeked over her crate. No sign of kett, except the bodies on the ground. Standing and stowing her assault rifle, she decided it was time to return to work, or at least the reason they were there to begin with. She scanned the corpses in case there was more they could learn from them, but it provided only a modicum of new data SAM could use.

“Let’s get that antenna turned on and get a move on,” Maritza suggested, jogging back up the hill clearly set on her mission.

“Sounds good to me,” Vetra seconded. She seemed to like being at Site One even less than Ryder did. It was weird, like something out of those gothic novels and ghost stories Ramón always read and told.

Clancy seemed surprised when they returned unscathed, but he let them in.

“You took down all those kett?” he asked. Vetra nodded and Arquist’s eyes widened. As Ryder strode into the room, he gave her a wide-armed gesture. “Sure, use the power relay. Hell, take whatever you like.”

“Thanks,” she replied, giving him a curious look as she moved straight for the power console. “You know, you really should get out of here,” Maritza said and turned back toward the scavenger leaning against the open door. “More kett could show, and I’ve got to go check out that signal.”

He nodded as if considering her suggestion. “Word of advice, if that signal of yours is outside the perimeter you’ll need something more than that fancy suit of yours. Shuttles aren’t fun in these winds.” he glanced out over his shoulder at the craggy landscape. “You’ll need wheels.”

“And what do you suggest?”

Clancy exited the station tower and trotted down the stairs. The pathfinder and her team followed him. He stopped on the slope leading back to the main part of the failed settlement and pointed to a massive yellow container. “That’s the prize here. Scavengers have been trying to get into that thing since this place cleared out. I think they kept a little something in storage, some kind of ground vehicle,” Arquist explained as they continued toward the large crate.

“Didn’t get around to salvaging it yet?”

“I tried,” he admitted with a laugh. “It ain’t that simple. No one’s been able to hack into it. Might be easier for a pathfinder, though.

Tapping at her omni-tool, Maritza raised her arm to scan the control panel. “Special requisition; all-terrain scout rover,” she mumbled as she skimmed the information in the read out.

“A Nomad. Six-wheel drive. Jump-jets. Just what you need.” The excitement in Gil’s voice was palpable over the comms. Maritza grinned widely.

“I might be drooling a little bit,” Kosta said.

“You and me both,” Clancy agreed.

“The crate requires an access code from a forward station,” SAM explained as Ryder chuckled. “There are several currently in orbit.”

“Sounds easy enough.” She glanced at the scan on her omni-tool. “Let’s find a good spot to call one down.”

“See? Easy. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised after how you handled those kett.” Clancy scratched the curve of his ear and stepped toward her. “Look, thanks again. Anytime you need something, just look me up. I’ll give you a good deal. I swear.”

When he offered her his hand, she took it, grasping it firmly. “I will, thanks.”

His countenance turned serious, bordering on sad as he stared into her face. “The failure here was expensive, Pathfinder. It’s worn all of us down, not just our shuttles.”

“Take care of yourself, Clancy. And get clear first chance you get.”

“You got it, Ryder. Good luck.”

She gave him a nod, which he returned. She watched him round the building and headed toward the shuttle they’d discovered earlier; meanwhile she and her crew went in search of a clear spot to call down a forward station to retrieve the codes for the Nomad.

 

**-7-**

The light shot through the hazy sky. The weapons fire halted completely as a dozen pairs of eyes stared at the sky.

“What the hell is that?” Massani asked as if one of the kett might answer him.

A beam from that old alien structure near Site One reached out to the other two sites. If he had to guess, it had something to do with the Initiative ship that landed not too long after he drew the kett off from Promise. He’d been tasked to security, and he knew for whom those vessels were held—pathfinders—though only one had survived the Nexus’ first bout with the Scourge upon arrival in the Heleus Cluster.

His sense came back to him before the kett regained theirs. He tossed a pair of grenades and opened fire before ducking back into cover. He picked the last two off one at a time, then walked toward the bodies. He rooted through their supplies and confiscated their weapons. Then turned his face back to the sky. He didn’t know what was happening, but the rumors had to be true.

A pathfinder had arrived, and more than that, they were doing something about the situation here. _But what?_ He shook his head at the sight; he had no idea.

In the distance, a plume of dust trailed into the sky near a cliff face. A smile curved his lips as he chuckled. He knew a dozen scavs who were going to be pissed to find out that mighty treasure was gone. People had been trying to hack into that storage crate for months, to no avail.

When he reached his shuttle, Massani stowed the few prizes he pulled off the kett, and headed back out for the ship he’d out maneuvered in the canyon. The black plumes of smoke had dwindled to a piddling swirl now. Hopefully, there would be something useful left in the wreckage.

“You crazy son of a bitch. That was you,” called a voice over his channel.

“Who else would it be, Clancy?”

“Fuck. I owe you one.”

“To be fair, it’s more like twenty.”

“Ah, who’s keeping count?”

 _I am_ , Massani thought.

“Look, just after you pulled those guys off a motherfucking pathfinder showed up.”

“You don’t say,” Massani mused, having already come to that conclusion all on his own.

“Took out a squad of kett _and_ their reinforcements,” Clancy explained, sounding incredibly excited. “Yeah, she saved my ass, too.”

“She?” Massani asked before he could stop his gut reaction. The human pathfinder was supposed to be Alec Ryder; he knew the man, by reputation only, but still well enough to know the difference.

“Yeah, she. Kinda cute, too, except for the gnarly scar on her face.”

 _Maybe she_ _’s seen a thing or two_.

“Who is she?”

“Ryder, that’s all she said. Gave her a discount on some stuff I had lying around.”

“Better not have been the stuff you were bringing me.”

Clancy smacked his lips together; Massani knew the sound and the habit well enough. “Never, man. I got you.”

 _Shit, he did sell it_. “All right. I’ll deal with it. Just remember this the next time the kett park a scout ship on your forehead.”

“Hey, man, c’mon. What was I going to do? Tell a pathfinder no? Shit!”

Massani shook his head and laughed softly. Clancy wouldn’t say no to anyone with two credits to rub together. “Don’t fret. I gotta go. Got a wreck to clear out.”

“Oh, let me know if you find anything good.”

“Will do,” Massani replied, then cut the connection. “Will not.”

He steered the shuttle in close to the smoldering, twisted wreck and landed. When he exited, he realized he wasn’t the only one here. _Fresh tracks. And they aren_ _’t kett. They look … krogan._ “Shit!” he mumbled. “Just what I need today.”

The retort of a shotgun and a vibrant laugh confirmed it. _Nakmor Drack_. Against his better judgment Massani made his way into the body of the ship through the gaping hole in the side. It was the product of the ship shearing off a stabilizer as they chased him through a tight opening in the canyon. The move had been perfectly textbook. One he’d rave to Reyes about next time they got the chance to sit down and bullshit over decent whiskey, but it didn’t mean a damn thing now.

With the route he chose, it was likely he and Drack would meet one another in the middle. In the control room, his entrance surprised one of the kett chosen. He launched himself at the alien and sliced him down with an Angaran firaan he’d been given. The longer the krogan didn’t know Bain was there, the better. He kept operational silence for an entire deck before he came across most of the crew holed up in the weapons bay. He managed to get two before they realized that they were being flanked. But it didn’t matter. The human and the krogan had the kett in a deadly crossfire and there was little they could do to rectify the situation.

When the gunfire died down, Massani kept to his cover and called out, “How’s it going, Drack?”

“Massani,” he hissed. “Well, well, well. Guess I should have known it was you?”

“Probably so, old man. But I’ll forgive you your moment of senility.”

The ancient krogan laughed heartily. It was not a jovial sound, but one that could chill most soldiers to their core. “Thought you’d muscle in on my action, huh?”

“No, just came to clean up a mess I made earlier.” Massani could hear the krogan moving. So, he placed a small device at the back of his hiding spot, engaged his stealth generator, and moved with great care to find himself a perch at an effective distance.

“Still scaving, huh?”

“No, just taking what I need and a little ordinance for some folks who could use it.”

“What are you a philanthropist now?” Drack asked with a disbelieving growl.

“Oh, c’mon now. You know me better than that.”

“I know you were a paid snake in the grass.”

Massani shrugged. “Still a snake, just not as well paid as either of us used to be. Have you seen the light show outside?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.”

Drack swung around the crate where Massani had been hiding and fired once. It was Massani’s turn to laugh. The krogan grabbed the transmitter the human had left. “Fucking spies. You’re as bad as the goddamned salarians.”

“Oh, c’mon now, Drack. You know as well as I do that they are incredibly good at what they do, even if their motives have been somewhat … shall we say … sketchy in the past?”

“I’d say underhanded,” the krogan grumbled. Then he crushed the transmitter, knowing it would either be the end of their conversation or the human would have to give away his position. Massani might be confident in his odds against a shipload of kett, but he knew going head to head against a krogan like Nakmor Drack was akin to the most painful route to suicide a man could ever choose.

While the broken old hunter might not put much stock in the value of his life, he wasn’t ready to end it quite yet.

Drack growled and stormed off. While Massani couldn’t be certain, he assumed the krogan didn’t have the patience for hide and seek. Knowing the old guy’s reputation more than the krogan himself, Bain held his position for a few minutes. Whether he was collecting gear or trophies, scouring for traces of the hunter, or just trudging back out of his ship, Massani didn’t know for certain. He kept an eye out for Drack from his well-hidden perch and pulled up the scans from his shuttle on his omni-tool. When the readouts showed another vessel leave the area, he breathed a little easier. Just to be safe, he checked the transponder on the retreating shuttle. _Sure, enough_. That was the vessel Drack used.

The krogan took trophies, but only rarely equipment. And he never pulled data from kett facilities. Massani, however, knew the value of data. Though so far, it had not proven to be as lucrative in Andromeda as its collection had been in the Milky Way. Still, he pulled video logs and audio clips, files, scans, and anything that looked potentially useful from the systems on the kett vessel. Along the way he gathered up useful salvage—weapons, supplies, tech, tools, ordinance, armor, even knick-knacks.

More than once he’d seen some scav or an Outcast passing off some trinket he traded them as a memento of a savage kill—usually to his buddies, or more often to someone they hoped to turn into a sexual conquest. It always made Massani chuckle. Half those guys had only seen the kett Sloane Kelly put on spikes as a warning to others, but they all acted like they’d gutted a squad of the bone-faced aliens with a rusty spoon, singlehandedly.

As he carried the first load out of the ship, he noticed the lights had shifted. He nearly dropped the crate on his foot when he saw the island in the center of the lake. _That wasn_ _’t been there before._ He watched the ground vehicle approach and pulled out his sniper rifle, peering through the scope as it skidded to a halt at the edge of the lake.

Black armor, mirrored visor—human. Another human in white and blue, this one with a strut. Then a lanky turian. _Interesting_ , he thought.   _Shame they're all wearing helmets._ _Wonder if I know any of her people._ He stared as the black console rose before her. His jaw fell when the one he assumed must be the pathfinder reached out to it. Massani nearly dropped his rifle at the sound that seemed to reverberate through the crust of the planet. Two black pillars rose from the water. He brought the weapon up again, watching her and the others cross the bridge as a shuttle landed.

 _Pesky asari_ , he chuckled to himself. He’d run into her a few times near those remnant sites. Helped her move one of her consoles onto one of those pillars once. _Crazy as a loon, that one_. But she could hold her own, and knew how to save her own skin, too.

“What the hell is that?” he wondered, watching the quartet disappear beneath an awning and into whatever was hiding down there.

He sat back and stared at the lake and the new island with its flanking pillars and hovering bridge.

“How did she even know to look for it?” he asked himself, before slinging his rifle onto his back. “How _could_ she know?” The Initiative had been in this system more than a year and never got so much as a blink out of one of these ruins. She shows up and manages to put on a light show on Eos.

He didn’t know what was going on, but it was suspicious and strange. Massani dragged himself away from the remarkable sight and back to the task at hand. He owed Reyes more ordinance, and this tech might get Milo in a mood to repair his shuttle next time he stopped into Kadara. So, he headed back into the ship for the piles of salvage he’d chosen from the wreck.

 

**-8-**

In the bright blue sky— _on Eos_. Massani could hardly believe it, _a clear, fucking sky_ —it looked like something out of an old American Western. A part of him expected two actors in cowboy hats and boots to square off in the high sun at any moment. Of course, in a way, that’s exactly what was happening. Drack had gotten himself cornered by a roving kett patrol and the pathfinder just happened to roll up onto the fight.

From his vantage point, she seemed together. _Controlled fire. Nice lob on her grenades._ “Oh!” he crooned as her overload arced to three kett. “Very nice!”

She had some skill, it seemed. But she lacked the confidence of Nakmor Drack, who waded into the thick of the battle without a care. The pathfinder hung back, keeping to cover as she moved across the battlefield. _Smart_. He could appreciate smart. A few times though she left herself in the open. A bright flash told him her shields went down, and the way she pressed her back to the remnant pillars confirmed it.

Massani paid no mind to her fellows or to the hulking krogan. He was more interested in the pathfinder, in the one he knew the Initiative would pin its expansion plans and hopes to. She was their symbol. Their tool.

“Yes!” he called through gritted teeth with each kill shot she earned. He hissed and cringed when she faltered. Deep down, he was rooting for her, even if he might not be the Initiative’s biggest supporter in Andromeda.

He sat there, concealed behind a rock, peeking through his scope as he scanned Initiative frequencies. He found hers after the battle concluded and the kett reinforcements were put down. Drack loomed over her, dwarfing the human female easily and rested a heavy hand on her shoulder. Massani would have said that look on the ancient krogan’s face was a smile if anyone asked.

The four of them stared skyward as something landed there in their midst. Bain couldn’t recall having seen one of those on Eos before she arrived, but he thought they looked familiar. Maybe he’d seen something like it on the Nexus, he wondered.

Moments later he heard her voice for the first time.

“Nexus,” she said. There was a little waver of excitement in her tone that brought a hint of a smile to his lips. “This is Ryder, Pathfinder. Outpost ready for deployment,” she ordered. There was a pleased confidence to her voice; a sense of relief Massani could feel as well.

He ignored the chatter on the line in other voices, and watched as she pulled her helmet off, and ran a gloved hand through her short, dark hair. She grinned widely and laughed as the other human gripped her tight around the shoulders and shook her with an excitement that oozed through his body language. Even the turian’s stance relaxed a little as they nodded with what seemed approval.

Whatever she had done, might just make this planet survivable. He sunk back behind his cover and looked up at the changed sky. The haze was faded to a soft, calming blue. Wispy clouds were forming as well; it was something he had never seen on Eos. Massani checked the readings—radiation levels were dropping, the moisture content of the air was rising faster than should be plausible, but it was happening. He didn’t know how or why, but something was happening on Eos, and it was more than the establishment of a new outpost.

And she had something to do with it.

 

**-9-**

Eager. That was the word Addison had used to describe the colonists, but following the establishment of Prodromos, the mood there was contagious. It infected Maritza Ryder and her crew to their cores. They spent several days helping the colonists with the establishment of the outpost and clearing even more kett and other threats from the surrounding area. Despite the obvious work of the homicidal Remnant structure, there were places on the surface where the radiation still hung heavy, too heavy even for the Nomad to explore.

Eventually, the _Tempest_ ’s crew found themselves in the way.

“Ryder,” Peebee called as she sprinted toward the pathfinder, who was lugging a crate down the steps of the shuttle landing pad along with three of the settlers. The lithe asari slid past the others, each bearing their own heavy loads, with a dancer’s grace until she was walking shoulder to shoulder with Maritza. “So, I was thinking it’s probably about time to check out those coordinates, don’t you think?”

Ryder chuckled, giving Peebee’s excitement a little head shake. “Yes, Peebee.”

The young researcher cheered unabashedly. “I’ll tell Kallo. Can I tell Kallo?”

“Sure, go for it,” she said as she deposited her crate atop some others. “I’ll be up there in about—” She glanced at the handful of crates left to be offloaded. “Let’s say, thirty minutes.”

“Excellent.” With that Peebee darted off.

“Tell Kallo an hour. I want to shower before we leave,” Maritza yelled.

Peebee waved a hand at her, but she wasn’t sure the message took.

“Excitable, that one,” Liam said, draping his sweaty arm over her shoulder.

“Yeah. We’re an interesting bunch.”

Her crew had expanded exponentially once they reached the Nexus. Thankfully, Cora and Liam stuck by her; they’d been invaluable on Habitat Seven and beyond. Vetra was quick on her feet in and out of combat, but she was still getting to know her, Gil, Suvi, and Kallo. Peebee had more energy and determination than Maritza, and that was saying something. Drack, well, the old krogan brought centuries of combat experience to her incredibly young crew; and the short time she’d known him, Maritza had come to respect him and his prowess.  

She wasn’t sure that they were what anyone expected of a pathfinder’s crew. Of course, she wasn’t the pathfinder the Nexus had been planning on either. And they’d already proven they could get the job done—Prodromos was the proof, living and breathing proof that maybe her dad had been right after all.

With a wide grin, Maritza looked up at Liam, then swatted him on the stomach. He doubled over with the shock of the hit.

“Not fair,” he groaned as she dashed away at an all-out sprint.

“Your own fault for hanging back, Kosta.”

“Payback is hell,” he called, giving chase.

The two of them were useless to the group offloading the crates, but no one minded. None of them would have been there if not for the work those two and the rest of Ryder’s crew had done. No one who saw the pair chasing one another around and rough housing in the sand thought much of it, though several did get a laugh when one or the other of them got the better of their cohort.

At one point, the pathfinder tripped Liam up, putting him in a headlock and ruffling his hair as he grumbled loudly about how she was cheating. In the end, Liam caught Maritza and threw her over his shoulder. Rather than put up much of a fight, she just hung there, resting her chin in her hands, while her elbows poked into his back.

“You’re heavier than you look,” he said as he set her on her feet. Liam stretched backward, hands on his hips as he stretched his back for emphasis.

Ryder narrowed her eyes at him and slapped him on the stomach again.

“Doh!” he groaned as the air escaped his lungs. “Would you stop that?”

“You going to stop being an ass?” she chided as the airlock opened. Her wide grin brought an upward curve to his lips.

“Probably not.”

“There’s your answer,” she chuckled. Liam shook his head at her, unable to do much more than laugh. After a day moving crates in the Eos sun, Maritza felt grimy and sticky and had sand in places one really should never get sandy. She just wanted a moment to relax and wash away the work of the day before heading out on the next leg. “I call dibs on the shower.”

“Not fair,” Liam crooned, like the sibling that missed the chance to sit in the front seat during the family trip.

“Too late. You wait,” she teased. Far too pleased with her impromptu rhyme, she darted past him and around the Nomad, which was now parked in the bay.

She neither thought about nor cared about the fact that she hadn’t brought a towel or a change of clothes with her. All that mattered was that she reached the shower first. And she took full advantage of that email Kallo sent her about _Tempest_ hacks. Despite the heat on Eos, the hot water did great things for her sore muscles and her sense of well-being. After keying in the code that allowed her an extra share of hot water, she relaxed under the spray, letting the soap, grime, and tension swirl right down the drain.

Maritza didn’t know what was waiting for them or even where they were headed. It was a green orb on some interstellar display in an ancient alien vault meant to terraform planets, or at least that’s what they assumed the Remnant ruin’s purpose to be. That theory was the product of guess work pieced together from slim evidence.

 _Ram_ _ón would laugh his ass off at these inferences_ , she thought. Her mouth tightened against the pang in her chest at the thought of her brother. It only worsened when she realized how little she’d thought about him in the past several days. Even if there hadn’t been time, she still felt guilty about leaving him behind and seeing so little of him.

The door not far from her opened. “Ryder, Kallo’s asking for you. I think Peebee might be driving him insane.”

She peeked around the divider and blinked her violet-gray eyes at Vetra. “Liam sent you, didn’t he?”

“I did not,” Kosta yelled from the crew’s quarters.

Vetra gave her a tiny nod. “But I did bring a towel.”

“Thanks,” she said, stretching for it. Reluctantly, she cut off the water, wrapped the towel around her, grabbed her soiled clothes and her boots and padded to her room. Along the way, she shot Kosta a wink. “All yours.”

Despite a desire to melt away under the spray, Maritza knew she couldn’t lose herself in the creature comforts. There was work to be done, and the responsibility for it sat squarely on her shoulders. They needed to find out what the anomaly on that map was. Good or bad, it might hold answers.

To be honest, she had no idea what to expect. It could be another Habitat Seven. Part of her really hoped they might find something to help them find their way in the Heleus Cluster, a way to make this place a home.

**-10-**

“You’re a long way from the flock, Little Duck.”

“Little duck? Who is this?” Ryder said, her brow furrowing deeply over her pale eyes.

“Someone who’s got work for you. Come to my navpoint, if you think you’re up for it.”

“Wanna check it out, _little duck_?” Drack taunted with a deep, rumbling chuckle.

“That is not becoming a thing,” Maritza warned, pointing a finger at him as she steered the vehicle toward the nearest forward station drop point. His laughter grew—joined by Liam’s—and she smiled despite herself.

Whoever this guy was, they’d take him up on his offer and stuff it, along with a few of his teeth, down his smug throat. Defiance burned beneath her skin. She might be dwarfed by the rest in her fireteam physically, but there was nothing small about her attitude.

Once the forward station touched down, she keyed up the coordinates sent by the man who broke into her comm frequency.

“Let’s go find this guy.”

“Some people call him Kett’s Bane,” Drack noted.

“You know this idiot?”

“Know of, more like.”

“So?”

“Human. Tasked to security. Left with the rest of the exiles. Spent the last—” He shrugged. “Oh, six months banging on the kett’s front door. Like me. I’ve run into him a time or two. Squishy bastard.”

“You call me squishy, too,” she said.

“Yeah, but I like you,” Drack laughed.

Maritza loved that sound: the gravelly rumble that welled from deep in his chest and burst forth like a geyser. As disturbing and off putting as it could be, it comforted her because she knew the two of them were both on the same side. “So, what’s his story?”

“Hell, if I know,” he replied with a quick shrug and a disinterested tone.

Liam leaned forward, draping his arm on the back of her chair, and resting his chin on his wrist. “Maybe he bit off more than he can chew.”

Drack grumbled. “I don’t know about that. I’ve seen that guy bite off a lot.”

“Well, _Drack_. I never would have imagined,” Ryder teased. The Nomad erupted in laughter again as they approached the location this Kett’s Bane sent them.

A thick plume of black smoke billowed from nearby wreck and kett corpses littered the ramp leading to the entrance of the building.

“Our friend was calling from a kett bunker? Hmm,” Liam said, sounding suspicious as they approached.

It seemed sketchy to the pathfinder as well. Maritza pulled her rifle out and took quiet steps toward the door in hopes of not tipping off any enemy forces that might be waiting to ambush them within. “We don’t know he’s a friend,” she replied.

The door slid open and she didn’t get more than a step inside the door before the man glanced up at her. Kett bodies littered the room and he was kneeling beside one as if inspecting it.

“Well, well. Glad you decided to show,” Bain said as he stood and stepped over the body at his feet.

“This your handiwork?” she asked, lowering her weapon. It was politer than keeping it trained on him, for now at least.

He holstered his pistol and grinned at her. “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He brushed his glove off on the pocket of his greaves then held it out to her. “Name’s Bain Massani. Kett hunting’s a hobby of mine.”

Maritza looked at his hand a moment before she took it in hers. “We should start a club,” she chided, in a dark sarcastic tone.

Bain chuckled. “Well, Eos is the perfect spot for it. Planet’s a kett-magnet. I’ve been tracking them down, marking locations to target. Heard you took out that research center of theirs up at that ruin. Nice work.”

“Thanks,” Maritza replied, her tone guarded and distant. She wasn’t sure what this guy was up to, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to find out.

“The bastards still have a big presence here.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Bain’s gaze bored into her, like he was studying and measuring every response she made. He leaned his shoulder back against a nearby crate. “If you want to protect that shiny new outpost, you better wipe them out,” he said.

It almost sounded like a veiled threat, but deep down she felt certain that wasn’t the intention. After all, if it were his plan why would he tell her about it.

“I’ll do whatever I can to keep Prodromos safe,” she replied, offering him a modicum of the kind of candor he gave her.

“Glad to hear it. Sending navpoints to your omni-tool. Eventually we’ll want to hit the crown jewel—their main base. But I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.”

“Oh, really? You don’t, do you?” she replied. Venom laced the edge of her tone as she took a step toward him. Despite having to look up at him, she did her best to appear imposing.

Massani didn’t back down, he just straightened and loomed over her. “You’re young, you're brash, and you take far too many risks.”

“And what would you know about it?”

“More than you think, Little Duck.”

Maritza’s lip rose in a sneer at the moniker. She stepped away and turned toward the door. “I’ll decide when I’m ready.”

“It’s your funeral,” he said, leaning against a crate near the door once again. “I can’t stop you from being stupid.”

Maritza glared at him over her shoulder.

“Happy hunting, Pathfinder,” he said, giving her a mock salute.

She shook her head, her tongue pressing against the back of her teeth as her jaw flexed. _The nerve of this bastard_. She waved a hand toward her shoulder, a signal for her team to fall in as she walked toward the door. As it slid open with a whoosh, the wind racing across the Presson Dunes whistled through the opening, mussing her short dark hair and whipping it across her forehead wildly. “You coming? Or is this Kett’s Bane title of yours bullshit?”

“Guess Drack was talking out of school,” Bain said with a chuckle that mirrored the deep resonance of the krogan’s.

He nodded and made a sweeping gesture of his arm. It might have been polite in some circles, but she didn’t see it that way. She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to show him up or just coldcock him with the butt of her gun. As she weighed the two options in the back of her mind, he followed the _Tempest_ crew out of the building.

She tromped down the ramp with the grace of a rampaging rhino, and quickened her pace as soon as her for feet touched the sand. The four of them reached the door of the facility housing the generator without incident. She knew that wouldn’t be the case once they entered. She keyed her omni-tool and the door opened, like the prize reveal at the worst game show ever.

To her surprise, the foyer was empty, but it split off in two directions. “Drack, you and Liam, go right? Me and KB will go left? We can flush them into a crossfire.”

“Ryder.” Liam’s disagreement failed to reach his lips before her hand went up. “Going right, Pathfinder.”

 

**-11-**

Drack just grumbled and stomped past Kosta, racking a round into his shotgun for good measure. Ryder, however, didn’t say anything else, she just tipped her head and dashed for the door ahead of them. It opened before they reached it. Bain raised his gun as he took a small step to the side to put himself between the kett and the pathfinder—an instinct ingrained in him after years on protective details. He fired in short bursts, felling the excited chosen. As they entered the room, he preceded her again as three kett rushed in from another door.

Drack’s shotgun and Liam’s grenades could be heard on the other side of the wall, as well as the krogan’s maniacal laughter. As the enemy trio came into the room, a strange sensation swirled around him, like a flash of centripetal force, pulling him a step off balance. Before he could look to his right, Ryder rushed past him in a haze of blue. Her fist blazed as she landed a right hook to the jaw of the second alien, knocking him out cold. The first started to step back out of the room again, but Massani’s attention on her slowed his reaction to the kett.

He found himself just watching as her shields burst outward. The two kett fell to the ground and Ryder turned and gave him a stern, but deserved glare. He paid it little mind, the familiar whirring sound of the spinning barrel of an anointed’s heavy gun spurred him into action.

Bain dashed toward her, pushing her into the corner and covering her body with his, another reaction borne of instinct from his work in the private sector back in the Milky Way. Rounds peppered the wall behind him as he stared down at her.

Her eyes distracted him. A stormy gray rimmed by … _Violet,_ he thought, staring at her face. _Rare. Striking._

The raucous laughter from the walkway just beyond them ended the weapons fire, and a short burst from an SMG finished off another.

“Impressive,” Massani said, taking a step back.

“I know,” she said, bumping into him and pushing him away another step as she exited the corner.

“Nice move, Ryder,” Drack said as he approached. The big krogan grabbed her forearm and grinned at her. It was a disturbing smile but there was something warm behind his eyes. “How’d the merc do?”

“He’s got some catching up to do.”

“Hah! Figures,” the krogan said with little more than a glance in Bain’s direction.

“Don’t worry about me, Little Duck. I’ve got more than my fair share of trophies.”

She glared at him over her shoulder, riveting him in place again with those eyes. Then she looked just past him. As she strode toward the console, he silently watched as her fingers flew across the interface of her omni-tool.

“This could really give Prodromos a boost,” Kosta told her as he leaned on the console beside her. The way he looked at Massani wasn’t anything the hunter hadn’t dealt with before. And being in Heleus it was even more understandable. They didn’t know him, and he was challenging their squad leader, which rarely went over well no matter the species or the type of unit.

“Yeah. And they need every advantage we can give them,” Ryder agreed. “This can’t be the only generator the kett brought.”

“Given the large kett presence on Eos, I would agree, Pathfinder,” SAM noted, though only the _Tempest_ crew heard the AI’s assessment.

“I’ve scouted a few more of these generators in the Blackrock,” Massani chimed from his spot just outside the door and far beyond the circle of her influence.

She turned and leaned on the console, regarding him for a few seconds. “Show me.”

“After the barracks,” he replied, knowing he was pushing his luck.

Her stare, vicious as it appeared, didn’t deter him. The generator was barely a squad, no alarms, no backup. It was easy. The barracks, now that should prove more of a challenge, he thought.

With a long exhale, replete with exasperation, the pathfinder straightened. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Ryder rounded Liam, who fell in step behind her. As Massani took a step, a thick hand landed squarely in the center of his chest. The ancient krogan looked him in the eye with a growl and sidled past him. A crooked smile played across the human’s lips as he followed the trio out of the bunker. One thing was certain, she had gained the respect of her crew, and fast. That was something he admired greatly.

On his way out, he did stop to grab one of the alien weapons that looked like it was in better shape than the others, then continued out the building and across the sand toward their vehicles. The drive to the barracks took no time at all. And the quartet moved through the base with surprising ease given the tagalong, which led Ryder to suggest that the four of them move immediately on the main base.

Massani liked working with her. She was determined, even if she was a little green around the edges. Beyond that, she wasn’t at all what he expected from a pathfinder. Maritza Ryder captivated and intrigued him. So, of course, he agreed when she suggested they go after the crown jewel then and there.

 

**-12-**

At the end of the day, the pathfinder and her squad headed back to the _Tempest_ only to find a celebration in Prodromos. After showers and a change, they joined the colonists for food, music, and entertainment.

No one at the impromptu celebration questioned Ryder when she yawned, stood, and started for the door. A few said they would like her to stay longer, but none of them pushed for it hard enough for her to feel bad about leaving early. After all, she and her squad had spent the previous two days clearing out kett facilities in the Presson Dunes and on the Sheartop.

She did head back to the _Tempest_ , but she didn’t stay there. Changing back into her gear only took a few minutes and then she was on the move again.

“This seems ill advised, Pathfinder,” SAM said over her private channel as she exited the ship.

“Noted,” Maritza replied as she jogged down the ramp. Once she hit the sand, she broke into a sprint. Her target was within sight and the shuttle was incoming.

“I would like to reinforce my concerns.”

“Look, SAM. I get it. But it’s fine. I swear.” This little excursion felt a lot like sneaking out of her parent’s house when she was in high school. One, it centered around an incredibly similar situation—meeting a guy she had no business going out with—and, two, it felt against the rules. All told, more than the run had her heart pumping.

After the radio call, she’d thought Bain Massani was just another name she could add to the list of people who didn’t think she could handle her position. But she was looking forward to the promise of a more action in the dunes.

Her boots rang off the metal grating of the stairs she took two at a time. The shuttle slowed and touched down. She slipped through the still opening door and doubled over, leaning on her knees and taking deep breaths.

“And here, I thought I’d have to wait on you,” he said by way of greeting.

Maritza straightened and narrowed her violet eyes at him. “See, I can’t tell. Do you actually think you’re funny? Or are you just an ass?”

“That, Little Duck, depends on who you ask.” He flashed a crooked, playful grin at her.

Maritza sighed at the moniker. She hated it. Hell, that name was one of the reasons she made a beeline to the coordinates he’d forwarded her. She had wanted to shove it down his throat, maybe along with a couple of his teeth. But strangely, the desire to punch him in the face lessened when she glanced up at him; it was replaced but a bit of a flutter in her gut, which she shrugged off as excitement about their plans rather than him.

He chuckled at her reaction and turned back to the controls. Once the door closed, he engaged the engines. “So, I’ve scouted two locations. One’s just a small camp. The other is a good-sized outpost. Which would you prefer?”

“Porque no los dos?” she asked with a laugh as she slipped into the empty seat at the console.

The gentle rumble got louder as his voice roiled with laughter. “Sounds like a plan.”

They hit the outpost first, which was her bread and butter. Her approach to close quarters combat, left him lagging behind her on the kill count, despite his own efficacy and skill in hunting kett. But their styles meshed. While she excelled at groups, Bain picked off the stragglers with ease. After deactivating another generator, she tagged it for the outpost to retrieve, without thinking about it.

Not ten minutes later, Massani landed the shuttle on a ridge just above the other camp.

“What are you thinking?” she asked as she surveyed the camp from the distance. When she turned, she saw him crest the roof of his ship and hold his hand down to her.

“C’mon. Nothing like some long-range target practice under the cover of night,” he chided.

She hopped up and grabbed his hand, using it as leverage to climb up. “Really? That’s your brilliant plan?”

“I wouldn’t say brilliant,” he replied, drawing his sniper rifle. “But it could be fun.”

Maritza chuckled and shook her head. She pulled her own weapon out and sat down atop the shuttle. Pulling her knees up, she cradled her weapon in a seated firing position. It would offer her more stability than the roof of the shuttle since her rifle didn’t have feet. Bain, however, draped himself across the ship.

“I’m starting at the right,” he said.

Maritza turned enough to compensate. “I got left,” she answered just before firing her first round. Following the recoil, she sighted her target again. _On the ground. Not moving._ “One.”

The retort of his rifle sounded a beat after hers. She guessed it was because the remaining kett dove for cover upon hearing her shot.

“Two,” he said.

She scanned the area looking for another target. Finding one crouched behind a console, she lined up her shot and waited for him to stand again.

“So, Bain, you obviously weren’t a kett hunter back in the Milky Way. What did you do?” she asked.

“What? Drack didn’t tell you all my secrets?”

“Didn’t know the old man knew them.”

He huffed a light laugh. “He doesn’t. Though he might think he does. But no. I worked in the private security sector. Pay was good, but the job bored me. A buddy of mine told me about the Initiative. I thought it sounded like one hell of an adventure.”

“Look at you,” she teased. Her smile pitched the tone of her voice toward playful.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, chuckling and glancing up at her over his shoulder.

Her target poked his head out, and she fired. “Three.” Reloading, she looked down at him. “I mean you answered the next two questions I could have asked instantaneously.”

“It’s called preparedness. Anticipate and react accordingly.”

“This is a conversation, not combat,” Maritza said as she shouldered her rifle again.

“Same difference, most of the time.”

“Really, now?” Her barrel rose as she looked at him, but he was focused on his target not her.

“Can be.” His shot echoed off the cliff wall behind them. “Four.”

“How many left?”

“When I scouted earlier, there were seven.”

“Oh, an odd number? That means someone will get bragging rights.”

When she grinned at him, he laughed and shook his head. “The potential is there.”

“Of course, if we add up the count from earlier in the day.”

“Different exercise,” he countered.

Ryder chuckled and it took her a moment to regain her steadiness.

 

**-13-**

“What about you?” he asked. “What brought you to Andromeda?”

“Family. Did you bring any family with you?”

Massani noticed the quick way she deflected the answer, but he just rolled with it; though he did fire another shot before he answered. “Five. And no. No family to bring. My mom died when I was a kid. Never met my father. Heard he was a big-time merc though. All I know is that he gave me his name and nothing else.”

The sound of another round cracked off the mountain side. He waited for her to say something, ask him another question or make a comment. Everyone who had ears and wanted to know about it could find out what happened to her father. Even though he knew, though he didn’t mention it. Seemed better to just let it slide for now.

“You didn’t come to Eos with Bradley’s team.”

“No,” he replied, he scanned the area around the camp in search of the remaining kett. “I’m one of Tann’s _scary exiles_. Left the Nexus after the uprising.”

Maritza let out a quiet growl. “Why did you join the uprising?”

His jaw tightened thinking about it. He let out a slow breath before he answered, “I didn’t like how they played god—deciding who woke up and when. So, I played mutineer. When things didn’t pan out, I went my own way.”

“You didn’t want to stay with the other exiles?”

“I did for a time. But, honestly, most exiles are assholes. And not the lovable kind.”

“Like you?” she chided, laughter tickling her voice.

“Exactly,” he crooned just before he scored the final, and winning shot, though he didn’t care what the count was. The last one had been cutting through the desert moving toward their position when a round bored through its head. Maritza set her weapon on the roof and stretched her arms above her head. Then she laid back and stared up that the sky.

“It’s actually kind of pretty here. I mean I’d never been to the desert on Earth, but it looked like this in pictures.”

Bain shifted so he could see her better, then looked up at the stars. “It was similar, but not exactly the same. Less kett, for one thing.”

She turned on her side and tucked her hand under her head. “Why do you think the kett are drawn to Eos?”

“In my experience, they go wherever those weird-ass structures are.” He nodded to a smaller one just a few clicks away in the dunes. “No idea why. I gave up questioning the damn things. Better to just put a bullet in their head.”

“Well, we did that.”

He chuckled and propped himself on his elbow. “Indeed, we did.”

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, her tone more on the serious side.

“You mean something else,” he chided. He didn’t mind the questions, at least not from her.

She sighed, rolling onto her back and away from him.

“Shoot,” he replied to her exasperation.

“I mean, I’m not sure anyone likes the kett. But you really seem to hate them.”

“That’s not a question, Little Duck,” he said, turning onto his side and looking down at her. The moonlight highlighted the roundness of her cheeks and the shape of her brow. But it was her eyes that continued to captivate him; they seemed paler in the moonlight.

“You know what I mean.”

One shoulder shrugged upward a hair. “What can I say?”

In the Milky Way, Massani worked alone. He was paid to accomplish tasks that were thought to make things better, though he never really saw the results of his work with clarity. In Andromeda, it was different. The kett were a threat to any chance he and people like him had. He didn’t give two hoots about the Nexus or Sloane Kelly, but he knew the struggle to survive here was real. Massani wasn’t a leader, he wasn’t a pathfinder. He was just a guy who was good at two things: protecting people and taking out a threat.

But that answer wouldn’t do. So, with a grimace, he looked out at the darkened desert and continued, “They’re ugly and I’m a man of aesthetics.”

She didn’t respond immediately. When his gaze lowered again, her eyes turned on him. The gray stood out far more prominently than the violet in the scant light of night. “Not sure I buy that answer.”

Massani took a long slow breath in and out. The hand he draped over his waist brushed the back of her forearm gently. He wasn’t sure whether he should pull it away or leave it there. He indulged his baser nature and did the latter. “They’re a problem,” he said. “And I’ve always been good at solving problems.”

“Great critical thinking skills?” she asked. Her arm moved, but not away. It rose; the backs of her fingers bumped his arm in an awkward caress. Then her whole body turned, inching toward him.

“Something like that.” It was like she had her own gravitational pull and he was locked in an inescapable collision course. She carried herself with a mix of confidence and determination that couldn’t be mistaken or overlooked. The moment she squared off with him in that bunker, Bain felt that force of hers. She’d drawn him in, like she had her crew. Maybe it was her smile or her fearlessness—perhaps all of it. Massani respected the pathfinder, and he wanted Maritza.

Her mouth brushed his and a rush of sensation washed over him. Like when a riptide pulled one beneath the surface of the ocean, he’d drown. His hand found her cheek and held her near. With soft kisses, they touched one another, tested and pressed against boundaries. It deepened quickly. Her hand smoothed over his head, the other hooked around his back as their bodies followed suit, meeting and entwining.

Neither had been looking for this, but in that moment neither of them shied away from it. His thigh slipped between hers; her hips rocked against it in the most enticing manner.

Finally separating, Bain looked down at her with a smirk. “You’d think it had been six hundred years since you had an orgasm,” he teased.

“Maybe you should do something about that.” Wantonness twisted her lips into a look that mirrored his own. And damn did it make him want to do just that.

“I’ll be more than happy to. Just … not here,” he said. He grabbed his rifle and stood.

She exhaled an exasperated sigh, but followed suit. She followed him off the roof of the shuttle and his hands caught her waist and steadied her as she landed. “Believe me, I’d take you on that roof if I was certain we wouldn’t get shot at in the middle of it,” he told her as he pulled her into the shuttle. “Nothing ruins sex faster than bullets flying.”

Maritza chuckled. “You speak like you’ve had experience with that.”

“Not personally,” he said, slipping behind the controls of the shuttle. “But I’ve heard stories.”

 

**-14-**

For a moment, she’d thought inside the shuttle was all the distance needed. But when it lifted off again, she grumpily fell into the chair next to his. As she watched, he tapped out the coordinates, engaged the autopilot, and held a hand out to her. Maritza resisted for a moment, but finally took his hand and allowed him to pull her into his lap. As the amorous kissing resumed, his fingers sought out hooks, clasps, and latches. Here and there pieces of ceramic, both his and hers, clanged off the deck.

When the shuttle controls sounded a warning, their kiss broke. They’d reached whatever destination he’d given it. Looking at the terrain, it was a high lonely peak; one that seemed like the perfect place to not be bothered. The landing was quick, if a little rough.

“Sorry,” he muttered against her mouth as his hand on the back of her neck pulled her lips against his again.

Maritza leaned forward and popped the latches on her boots then managed to push them off without breaking contact. She pressed his head back, her tongue delving into his mouth as she straddled his lap. The smooth ceramic offered little in the way of pleasurable friction.

“It’s fine, but you have far too much armor on,” she grumbled and bit his bottom lip.

“I was more concerned with getting yours off.” His hand clutched her rear end, pulling her body against his.

“We need to change that.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter yet.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Maritza chirped with surprise when the seat whipped around. As he stood, she slipped off his lap. With every step he took toward her, she moved across the mostly empty cabin. Her heels bumped a piece of armor or two along the way. She was certain they had almost reached the back, when he turned her and pressed her against the back wall. His body covered her back, his mouth wrapping around her earlobe and sucking. He tugged at it with his teeth as the zipper running down her spine fell. His hands smoothed over her under armor, sliding up her legs, across her belly, cupping her ass and her breasts—squeezing and exploring. Then one hand crept up to her neck, caressing up to her chin. His calloused fingers grazed soft skin on one side and uneven scarring on the other without missing a beat. Then his nails scratched down her throat lightly. He caught the neck of her suit on the way, dragging it slowly. His other hand swept it off her shoulders, which he planted kisses across, each in turn.

The smooth cool exterior of his suit against her back was a stark contrast to the heat blazing beneath her skin. It made her shiver and spawned goosebumps, which raced down her bare arms. Moments later the sensational disparity was rectified. At the electric feeling of skin on skin, she sighed long and low. The heat from his body prompted her to melt against him, savoring the newfound warmth. His lips and teeth played down her neck in a mix of soft and sharp that left the pathfinder moaning freely. The snaps of the catches on his greaves preceded the glassy thud of them hitting the floor.

His hand on her chin guided her mouth to his, while he pulled her skintight suit farther down. She tugged at the sleeves to free her arms and hands. She felt comical and foolish, yanking franticly at the stretchy material, until his hands cupped her breasts.

“Relax,” he murmured in her ear before his teeth nipped at the cartilage, sending a shiver racing down her spine. But it encouraged her to do just that.

Maritza leaned against his chest, fighting with the suit forgotten as she twisted her head up toward him. His mouth covered hers, moving with greedy passion, much like his hands, which teased her nipples hard with a flurry of whole-hand squeezes and careful rolls. When he gave one a savage pinch and a tug, it sent an electric tingle through her body and she moaned into his mouth, which seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

Or at least that was her guess. A moment later one of his large hands skimmed her belly and stopped at her hips, inching her suit and undergarments lower and lower. His other hand cradled her jaw, keeping her lips close. He placed light pecks on her top lip, then her bottom lip as his fingertips lightly caressed newly bared flesh and found their way easily to the apex of her thighs.

His green eyes never broke her gaze, he held her there watching her reactions. He breathed in her soft sigh of relief with the first light touches. When his middle finger grazed her clit, Maritza bit her lip, trapping a sharp sound in her throat. As he dipped his finger into her greedily, her eyes closed and her chin dropped open with a low moan. Bain’s lips sealed upon hers, his tongue dipping into her mouth as if tasting the wantonness of that sound that started deep in her chest.

Her hips shifted with his hand; her ass rubbing against the bulge she felt near the small of her back. Though she wanted anything but, her panting breath forced her to break the kiss. Still he cradled her head, holding her against his searing chest as her own skin blazed with excitement.

The tip of his nose skimmed the length of her neck as a second finger pressed deeper. “Stars,” she sighed, letting her eyes slip closed. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against the cold metal bulkhead as the pressure built and her pulse raced. Even as he pushed her to the cusp, as she rocked against his hand and rolled her hips against his, Maritza wanted more. “Bain,” she mumbled.

“Mmm,” he hummed against her shoulder. His bare chest covered her back again, his jagged teeth spurred jolts of pleasurable pain along the edges of her spine.

She hissed as the flood of sparks washed over her. Whatever she’d been about to say disappeared in a flurry of moans and curses. Soft kisses dotted her shoulders, and the spots she remembered feeling him bite moments earlier. Maritza shuddered between his body and the shuttle wall, her hands balled up tight in her suit as she came. The petting and pecks continued until her breathing began to slow.

The rumble of a zipper caught the edge of her hearing. She was keenly aware of a new warmth between her legs. Then there was the change in sensation as his cock moved along the path his fingers had taken—across her clit and teasing at her entrance.

Maritza said nothing; she shifted her hips against him taking a moment to tease as she finally freed her hands from her under suit. One hand pressed against the bulkhead, the other reached down to help guide him against her body. He clutched at her waist tightly, letting her lead. When she tilted her hips and pressed him upward, his forward momentum carried him deep into her.

Bain’s low growl echoed off her spine. His forehead pressed against her shoulder as his hips snapped against hers again. He held her tight, one hand still clamped on her waist as the other slipped around her. They moved in tandem, like they had in the outpost—though now their goal was purely selfish, though no less lethal. Their voices low and needy rumbled through their chests, bouncing around them in the tiny space.

“Yes. Fuck, yes,” Maritza mumbled as she used the wall for leverage to push back into his thrusts.

“Damn, you feel amazing,” Bain said in reply. His whole body moved against her back and their bodies clapped with each meeting of flesh. The sound seemed louder in the small space.

Sweat beaded on exposed skin as they chased a euphoric high. Her heart pounded against her rib cage as he pulled away. A chill settled over her back as his fingers dug into the flesh of her hip and shoulder with enough force to bruise. Bain used that grip to help guide her movements as she pushed back against him with just as much fervor, using the wall for leverage.

Lowering one hand from the wall, her fingers danced around her clit. The sensational buzz thrumming just out of reach. Her keening moans mixed with his predatory grunts. Their hips slapped against one another as their nerves sparked and burned toward their climaxes. Each succumbed to their own passion, and, spent, they leaned there, propping one another up with the help of the shuttle’s structure.

Light kisses peppered her shoulder again, and she peeked back at him. He flashed her a brief grin, then pressed a kiss near her ear. As he looked at her, she noticed something in his eyes shift.

Her afterglow faded as he slipped away, the distance felt chasmic. She turned and leaned against the wall, staring at him. The cold metal chilled her heated skin but sparked a very different kind of shiver to quake through her body.

Everything seemed to twist out of focus. She’d thought there was a connection between them, but now it seemed limited to nothing more than intense chemistry and fervent biology. Her body pressed more heavily against the bulkhead, disappointment weighing her shoulders down.

He tugged his briefs and his suit back to his waist, then pulled open a drawer and grabbed a cloth. When he returned, the heat radiating off his chest made her nipples pucker, but he didn’t touch her. Not the way she wanted, not at all. One hand planted against the metal wall next to her head and he offered her the cloth. His lips were tight and there was a new distance in his gaze; it chilled her to the bone.

Not knowing quite what to say, she went with a quick mumbled, “Thanks.”

Once again, this excursion felt like those times she sneaked out when she was in school. They did something fun, they fucked, and now it was done. _Andromeda wasn_ _’t all that different after all_ , she thought. Maritza knew this role well—she’d had her fair share of one-night stands. Clearly, this was the wash up and go moment. So, she did just that, swabbed the cloth between her legs and tugged up her suit. Despite his offer of help, she managed the zipper on her own.

Her disinclination sent him back to the controls. On the return flight, she gathered up her armor, most of which had skidded toward the rear of the cabin, and redressed. It was far easier than being at the console and having to attempt small talk, especially feeling as foolish as she did right then. She’d been attracted to him, of course sexually, but there had been more to it; though his response after left her wondering.

 

**-15-**

Her movements rang through the cabin of the shuttle. Even her breathing echoed in his ears, overpowering the muffled whine of the engines. Stealing glances as she reclaimed her armor, he felt a well hollow in his chest.

 _She shouldn_ _’t be beautiful_ , Massani thought. _It just muddied things._

He shook his head and tried to glue his eyes to the console. _It shouldn_ _’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I have more self-control than that_ , he told himself.

Neither of them spoke at all during the short flight back to Prodromos, nor did they say anything when she exited the shuttle. Massani, like he had when they took off earlier that evening, closed the door quickly and left the Initiative settlement. He tapped out a course that would take him off Eos, and let the autopilot handle the navigation.

With a growl, he turned in the chair and stood, pushing his hands over his face, over his head. They clasped behind his neck as he stared at the back wall. He could still see her leaning there. Her skin gleamed like copper with that orgasmic flush and a slick of sweat; her taut tawny nipples peaked with excitement, begging to be worshiped. Bain pulled his hands free and pressed his thumb over the palm of his other hand trying to dampen the urge to touch her once more.

He remembered the look of hurt that flashed in her eyes when the distance grew between them. Recalled how she buried it under the armor of the pathfinder.

More than anything he wanted to while away the rest of the night with her on that peak. Strip her down and pay homage to every inch of her body, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. Shouldn’t. _It was a mistake._

He’d lost himself in her eyes, the hints of secrets and demons he saw lurking there. She might have shared them with him eventually, but not now.

A fight and a fuck. That’s all he was to her. All he could be, he reminded himself. Despite that knowledge, he wanted more, so he set a course for Govorkam, thinking distance might help.

After all, Maritza Ryder was the pathfinder. She deserved better than a broken old hunter.


End file.
